


a million lights above you

by onekisstotakewithme



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas, Episode: s01e08 The Upside Down, F/M, M/M, Missing Scene, OT3, Pre-OT3, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/pseuds/onekisstotakewithme
Summary: How Jonathan got his new camera
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 49





	a million lights above you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daylight_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daylight_angel/gifts).



> Thanks to Day for the beta read as always ♥ (and for being my stranger things partner in crime)

He's tacking up the Christmas lights, when there's a voice from below his ladder. "Steve?"

Surprised, he bangs his thumb with the hammer as he looks down. "Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that!"

Nancy smiles up at him. "Hi."

"Hey Nance.” He goes back to his work. “You know that's really shitty luck, right?"

"What?"

"Standing under a ladder."

"I can move,” she says. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Right, yeah. Just let me-" He gestures with the hammer.

"Oh, yeah, sure."

He hammers in the last few nails, before climbing down the wobbly ladder. Her arms are crossed against the cold, and for a second he considers inviting her in, but he doesn’t think he wants to hear her answer. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see how you are," she says.

"Good." It's bullshit, but he figures it's the bullshit she wants to hear, and the bullshit she wants  _ him  _ to hear. "Yeah, I'm- I'm good. You?"

"Fine. Fine."

They stand there, their breath making clouds against the evening dim, the weight of all their history hanging between them, and around the side of the house, his dad plugs in the lights.

Only the sudden cheerful glow just makes them both flinch, and Steve wonders suddenly if any of them will ever think of anything but monsters every time the Christmas lights go up.

"I was actually here to talk to you about Jonathan," she says, and he can't help the frown.

"Oh."

"Steve-"

"No, yeah, you- you want my blessing or something, right? I mean Jesus, Nance-"

"No!" she says, and he steps back in surprise, because it wasn't too long since she had a gun pointed at him under Christmas lights just like these, and Jesus Christ, are they never going to be normal again? "It's not like that."

"Then what?"

"I'm gonna buy him a new camera," she says. "To replace-"

He can't help the jab. "To replace the one I broke defending you from that creep?"

"Steve-"

He holds his hands up in surrender. "Sorry. Byers - Jonathan - is okay. Dunno… why I said that…” 

She’s staring at him, unimpressed, and he clears his throat. 

“How much?"

"What?"

"How much do you want from me to get Byers his new camera?"

She looks like she's about to smile. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah. Dead serious." 

She’s smiling now. “Half. And I’ll go pick it out.”

“Nance, how are you gonna know which one to get? I mean, no offence, but you don’t know shit about cameras. I’ll go.”

“Do  _ you _ know anything about cameras?”

“I know enough.” He shrugs. “Point, click, flash, right?”

She laughs, a little sharply. “Sure, Steve. Only with you it's more like point, click, smash.”

“You’re hilarious, Nance,” he says, before noticing one of the lights flickering. “A regular stand-up-”

“I try,” she says quietly, and he wonders for a second if all she’s talking about is the jokes.

“Just one condition.”

She rolls her eyes. “I knew it! I knew you wouldn't just-”

“Don't tell him I helped,” Steve cuts her off. “Please, Nance.”

“You mean you don't want Jonathan Byers to know you have a heart?”

Steve’s face is hot. “It's not like that.”

“Not like what?”

“Look… I’ll do it,” he tells her, as she turns to go, and the lights are still fucking flickering, and they both look nervously upwards.

HIs chest is tight, as the lightbulb blinks overhead, and there’s a rainbow on the snow, and when he turns back to her, Nancy is gone.

He kicks at the snow. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he doesn’t even know who he’s talking to anymore.

* * *

He spends two hours at the electronics counter at Sears, listening to a sales clerk whose pitches all eventually fade into background noise.

“You hear about all that crazy stuff up in Hawkins?” the clerk asks at one point. “Crazy stuff.”

“Yeah.” Steve is too busy looking at the cameras, trying in vain to piece together the memory of the one he smashed. He's gone over it so many times it's become a worn blanket of a memory, threadbare in places- and there's a jagged rip in the part where he smashed it. “Look, do you have any more cameras?”

“Any… more?”

“Yeah. Is this all you got?”

“Are you looking for something specific?”

“I dunno. It's- it’s not for me.”

“Shopping for someone special?” the clerk asks, smirking. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, running his fingers over the edge of one of them, because it’s so much more complicated than that, and yet so simple. “Something like that.”

“We've got a few more in the back.”

“Sweet. Can I see those?”

“Well…”

“C’mon, man, I'm not asking to see top secret lab reports or something, I just want to look at your cameras.”

The clerk waivers, but the blood of a sale is in the water, and the shark fin appears. “Alright. You know much about cameras yourself?”

“Point, click, flash.” Steve tries for a winning grin, the King Steve one, and the clerk grins back. “Right?”

“Right.”

“Uh listen,” Steve says as the clerk turns to leave. “Do you have anything a professional photographer would use?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you show me those?” 

“Sure but one of those will set you back a lot-”

“That's fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I don't care how much they are.”

“Alright. I'll be back with them then.”

There's a fluorescent light panel buzzing overhead, and every time it flickers, Steve has to grab the edge of the counter, scraping his fingers on the rough edges to stay grounded until the clerk comes back. 

“Here we go, last of the cameras. Think you'll be able to find what you're looking for?”

Steve nods, and looks at the cameras, and thinks about Jonathan Byers. 

He doesn't know shit about the guy, beyond the whole missing-brother candid-camera thing. 

He wonders if looking at the world through the viewfinder of a camera helps it make more sense.

He picks up one of the cameras and holds it for a second. 

“Want to try it out?” the clerk asks. 

Steve fumbles. “Are you sure?”

The clerk shrugs. “Go wild.”

So Steve lifts the camera, and points it, and his world shrinks to the lens of the camera. 

And Jonathan Byers doesn't seem so strange - or at least not so strange in a town where stranger things are rapidly becoming the norm.

“I'll take it,” Steve says, lowering the camera again. 

“You didn't even take a picture yet!”

“Trust me,” he says, and he knows. “It's this one.”

The clerk sighs. “You want that gift-wrapped?”

* * *

Nancy is quiet when she walks back in after giving Jonathan the camera, but - much to his confused delight - tucks herself in against him anyway. 

And the only flickering lights tonight are the shadows from the fire.

“Did you give it to him?” Steve asks her.

“Yeah,” she says softly, and he has to bury a smile in her hair. 

He takes her hand, and runs a thumb over the self-inflicted scar across her palm, knowing that Jonathan has a matching one, an unholy blood pact that saved all their asses. But Steve’s hands - and palms - are clear and unmarked.

“You think he'll like it?” he asks instead.

“Are you always this insecure about gift-giving?” she asks, sounding amused. 

“What, I just spent a lot of money on that camera, and  _ maybe _ I don't want that creep to be a jerk about it.”

This time, she laughs. “Imagine if the school could see you now: the benevolent King Steve, actually  _ caring _ what people think of him.”

It's teasing and gentle and he smiles all the same. “Some people.”

“Oh?”

He kisses her temple, ignoring her dad sleeping a few feet away. “Maybe one or two.”

(And maybe the two are Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers, and maybe he'd sooner stick a fork up his ass than admit it, but _maybe…_ just maybe defeating a monster together is the closest they’ll ever get to understanding each other.)

She laughs. “Don't worry, Steve. Your secret is safe with me.”

He leans in and kisses her. “Merry Christmas, Nance.”

“Merry Christmas, Steve.”

_ And Jonathan _ , he adds silently, the way she must be doing. 

And outside, the Christmas lights glow steadily on, without a single flicker.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Long Away" by Queen  
> ~  
> This was my first ST fic I wrote, I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading! ♥


End file.
